Jeopardy Music = Waiting

Nothing new to report - the tank is experiencing a nice nitrite spike, and in the presence of nitrate that means we won't have much of a wait. The goldfish are happy and look healthier than ever, with careful PWCs and a LOT of water for them.

Many, many people disagree with using fish to cycle a tank, and woe unto you if you dare discuss doing this on an aquarium forum!! (Go ahead.... I dare you! :)).

There are many species of fish that cannot tolerate this process, but there are several that do. I have used ammonia to cycle a tank, the rotting shrimp method, fish food with no fish method, etc., and in a small tank frankly I would not use fish to cycle it unless they were extremely small ones (like Endler's or very small guppies) - it is close quarters and the effects of ammonia and nitrate are quite stressful to the hardiest of species. I have enough tanks running that I could start a decent sized tank with filthy filter media from my other tanks, but I don't have enough to get a 150-gallon started, and I have found, in this particularly large tank, that hardy fish tolerate the cycle.

So we will sit back and wait. This last part of the cycle can linger on and on for weeks, so patience is tested at this stage. Patience is not one of my strongest traits (!!) but there is no way I am going to put an expensive Tanganyikan in this tank until the water is very stable. They are extremely sensitive. When I was keeping calvus (one of my favorite tanks setups) even though I took care to keep the water change water as close as humanly possible to the tank water, with once weekly changes on a strict schedule, the fish would lie down on their sides on the sand every time I changed the water. Obviously there was some parameter that did not match, and the slightest thing sent them into dramatic exclamations. This did not seem to have any long-term deleterious effect on the fish, but I always felt horrible. I did not have this happen with N. brichardi/pulcher or with N. leleupi.

At any rate, the goldfish are showing no fin damage, no change in activity (can't get a decent still shot of them ever) and are eating like pigs so I'll soldier on. They look pretty cool in this tank, and I try to imagine what it would look like if they were much larger in this same tank (it would look COOL) but that is a tank for another time. This one is slated for Africans, specifically deep water Lake Tanganyika Africans, so I look forward to the day in the coming weeks when I can proudly post pics of my shiny new black and white with blue striped baby frontosa. Or Kodak box yellow leleupi. Or golden-headed compressiceps... spotted calvus... Ahhhhhh.....